Leigh Michaels – A Convenient Affair (страница 3)

Hannah shook her head. “I doubt she’d will her home to a distant cousin whom she’d met for the first time just weeks before she died.”

“Why not?” Brenton said coolly. “Who else is there to inherit it? Anyway, she invited you to move in with her—which is more togetherness than a lot of elderly people would offer their young relatives. She must have had something of the sort in mind.”

“I think,” Hannah mused, “that she saw a chance to acquire a personal maid and social secretary for the cost of room and board. Not that I minded helping out, but there never was a time she didn’t have a list of things for me to do. Letters to write and phone calls to return and errands to run and even canapés to hand around when she entertained—”

Brenton laughed. “Maybe this is her way of paying you back. From everything I’ve heard about Isobel, waiting to reward you till she was certain she wouldn’t need the money anymore would be right down her alley.”

Hannah had to smile, for Brenton was unquestionably right. Her elderly relative had been anything but the fluffy, generous, grandmotherly type.

“Anyway, Ken Stephens is waiting for you.” Brenton slid off the corner of the table and added casually, “I’ll be tied up with clients all afternoon. But I’ll take you out to dinner tonight at the Flamingo Room and you can tell me all about it.”

Hannah was startled. In the months she’d worked under Brenton’s supervision, they’d spent countless evenings together over pizza or Chinese takeout and one case or another, and they’d grown to be friends. He’d taken her to the theater for her birthday, and she’d taken him to a concert for his. But there was something different about this invitation. Perhaps it was the restaurant he’d chosen—the nicest one in the city. Or perhaps it was something in the tone of his voice…

Her surprise must have registered in her face, for Brenton suddenly looked as self-conscious as a schoolboy. “We’ll make a special evening of it. A very special evening. Over the last few months, Hannah, as I’ve gotten to know you…” He cleared his throat. “But you haven’t got time for that now. You can’t keep Ken Stephens waiting.”

Hannah brushed the musty scent of Jacob Jones’s files off her suit as best she could and took the elevator to the uppermost level of Stephens & Webster’s three floors, to the most-prized corner office belonging to the senior partner.

She was still a bit dazed by Brenton’s declaration of love—if, indeed, that was what it was. But what else could he have meant?

As I’ve gotten to know you…A very special evening…

The very idea that Brenton might actually be serious about her created an all-gone sensation in the pit of Hannah’s stomach. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She’d looked on him as a friend, that was all. If he wanted their relationship to be more—

But she’d deal with that later, she told herself. Right now, she needed to concentrate on Ken Stephens and whatever he had to say about Isobel’s estate.

And who knew? Maybe Brenton was right after all and Isobel had left her something. Not the condo at Barron’s Court, of course—that was far too much to expect. But it wouldn’t take much of an inheritance right now to make a big difference in Hannah’s life.

Ken Stephens’s waiting room was a great deal larger than the cubicle Hannah used as an office, and it was far more luxurious. Furthermore, the young woman who sat at his secretary’s desk was much better dressed than Hannah herself was.

But then—unlike Hannah—Ken Stephens’s daughter didn’t have law school loans to repay, so she could afford designer clothes. Of course, that begged the question of what Kitty Stephens was doing here at all; if she was in the habit of acting as her father’s secretary, Hannah had never heard about it.

Hannah took a chair and entertained herself by making a mental list of the things she would buy, if indeed Isobel had left her a small legacy. A few more really good suits would be first. Clothes might make the man, as the old saying went, but they could destroy a woman. A man could get by with a minimally stocked closet and a good dry cleaner, since one masculine pinstriped suit looked so very much like another. A professional woman, on the other hand, needed a wide variety if she wasn’t to get looks of the sort Cooper Winston had given her this morning.

Not that her desire for new clothes had anything to do with him. For all she cared, he could look at her in the same green suit from now till Armageddon. After all, he didn’t have to pay attention to what she wore.

And it wasn’t that she was getting her hopes up for a legacy, either. She was just killing time. So much for Brenton’s idea that Ken Stephens was waiting for her; it was too bad she hadn’t thought to bring along a carton of Jacob Jones’s old receipts so she could keep working. But of course the musty smell would hardly have been a welcome addition to the senior partner’s waiting room.

A chime on the secretary’s desk sounded, and—looking bored—Kitty Stephens waved a hand toward the heavy door of the inner office.

Hannah tapped and went in.

Behind a desk that was roughly the size of Hannah’s entire cubicle, a silver-haired man half rose and pointed toward a pair of chairs pulled up directly across the polished surface from him. “Have a seat, Ms. Lowe. I’m sorry to have interrupted your day. I understand you’re working with Bannister on the Jones case now.”

Hannah smiled faintly. “I wouldn’t say I’m working with, exactly. I’m simply going through all the papers so I can brief him on the background before the case comes to trial.”

“Well, that’s the kind of support we rely on our young associates to provide.” His gaze coolly assessed Hannah. “I understand you’re also the genius who caused a bit of a panic at the last minute over Cooper Winston’s restaurant chain.”

Hannah wished that he’d made it sound more like a compliment. “Yes, sir.”

“Our client was quite grateful. I thought you’d like to know.” He leaned back in his chair. “In a few minutes we’ll get started on tidying up the details concerning Isobel’s estate. But in the meantime, tell me how you came to be living with her. I’m afraid I never knew the fine points.”

And as Isobel’s attorney, he probably would have known all about me, Hannah thought, if Isobel had left me anything of significance. Obviously, it was a good thing she’d never really gotten her hopes up—much less decided what color her new suits should be.

“It’s quite simple,” Hannah said. “When I first came to town, of course, I was very busy with my new job here at the firm. But after a few months, I went to visit Isobel. It was just a social thing, really, to go and pay my respects to a senior member of the family.”

“You’d known her for some time, then? Years, perhaps?”

“Actually, no. I mean, I knew her name, of course, but I’d never met her before. It hasn’t been a very close family. And it wasn’t a very close relationship, either—she was my grandfather’s cousin—but since much of my family is gone, I wanted to make contact with Isobel.”

“So you visited her often?”

“No. Just the one time.”

Ken Stephens sounded politely incredulous. “And on the strength of that one visit, she invited you to move in with her?”

Hannah’s jaw tightened, and she had to make an effort to keep her voice level. “Yes, she did. It surprised me, too, at the time. I’d happened to mention that my roommate was getting married and I was having trouble finding an apartment I both liked and could afford, and Isobel offered me a place to live for a while. I thought she meant that we could do each other a good turn. I could look after her a bit—”

“Look after Isobel?” Ken Stephens sounded astonished.

“Yes. Of course, that was before I knew her very well,” Hannah pointed out. “It didn’t take long to realize that the last thing Isobel wanted was to be treated as if she was elderly.”

“Quite a nice little arrangement you had,” he mused.

Hannah gritted her teeth. She was grateful that another tap on the door prevented her from saying something she was bound to regret.

“Now that you’re both here,” Ken Stephens said with satisfaction, “we can get started.”

Hannah didn’t even look around at the newcomer. She was still listening to Ken Stephens’s last comment echoing in her mind. A nice little arrangement you had, he’d said.

Past tense.

Well, it was no more than she’d expected. She’d sit quietly though the formalities and start studying the classifieds over lunch…

The new arrival said, “Sorry I’m late, Stephens.”

Hannah froze. It’s your imagination, she told herself frantically. There is no reason on earth for Cooper Winston to be here. This is Isobel’s estate we’re talking about, not some merger.

But there was no denying, when she turned her head to look, that Cooper was standing just inside the office, one hand still on the door. Hannah noted that Kitty Stephens had not only stood up to show him to the door, but she’d ushered him all the way in. And he was looking down at her as if fascinated by the designer scarf at her throat—or, perhaps, the face it framed.

“Thank you,” he said gently.